What is Tenure and how is it calculated?

The Tenure of a user or an account is an essential data point when assessing product engagement.

Tenure is the answer to the question: How long has this user/account been with us?

In Sherlock, Tenure is a trait we hold dear. On any user or account detail page, you can view Tenure, but more importantly, Tenure is a trait you can use to segment your users/accounts.

How does Sherlock calculate Tenure?

We use the standard created_at trait (using iso8601 format) to calculate Tenure. This is a trait you can pass at the user as well as at the account level (using Segment's Group call). The calculation is pretty simple:

• For user tenure, we simply subtract the created_at date from TODAY.

• For account tenure, we look first for a created_at trait on the Group-level. If one does not exist, we look for the created_at trait for the users on that account and subtract the earliest data from TODAY. This calculation takes a bit longer, so using created_at at the Group level is definitely recommended.

If you are not using the created_at trait for users or accounts, we will not be able to calculate Tenure in Sherlock :/